Bloody Good
by jackal1973
Summary: Sookie's good Southern manners have allowed her to create a unique business opportunity and now Eric's going to be a devil about a few pertinent details.
1. Chapter 1

It felt as if someone had uncorked sunlight straight from the pretty blonde bottle in front of him.

Her cheerful apron, edged with a sassy red bow, framed her nicely rounded backside as she bent over the oven before him, eyeing the timer, and checking out her sizzling goods. That made _two _of them.

Her golden flesh, baked from the sun's rays, seemed like a very personal gift, wrapped just for him in the cloying scent of untouched freedom. The flirty skirt that teased up her smooth thighs begged his fingers to run a possessive hand over all of her warm, toasted skin, from the toe of her spiked heel to the delicate strap at the shoulder of her frothy little dress.

Yes, Eric definitely wanted to pull the strings of desire that would open his unexpected present.

_Slowly_.

Instinctively, he growled his needy response to her feminine wiles; the pungent surge of fear that suddenly laced the air between them smelled like the sweetest of honey and, unexpectedly, pleased him.

_Mightily_.

Startled by the hungry noise, the blonde instantly twirled her generous curves around in his direction to face his intrusion head on. His body thrummed with aching want as the sun-kissed beauty only got better. Her pert breasts impudently huffed along with the rest of her indignant form as Miss Stackhouse haughtily demanded, "May I help you?"

_Definitely._

A soft chuckle rose from deep within, spurred by all the wickedly prurient ways that he _could_ answer the innocent little temptress's question. Naughtily, he let innuendo linger unspoken between them for an indecent second as his carnivorous gaze raked across every primped and polished morsel of her delectable figure. The seemingly innocuous summer frock had her looking more like a luscious vanilla cupcake, sprinkled with a bloody topping, and smelling like she'd been dipped in a vat of glistening daylight.

Meant for pure vampire pleasure; she was simply exquisite.

Suddenly, he wanted to bury himself fang deep into every tasty morsel of her succulent flesh without much care as to why he'd come to her business in the first place. The Sheriff could always inform the enchantress of her new arrangement later, after he'd fucked her into glorious submission.

Icy fire blazed unchecked in his blue depths as they met her frightened gaze, the strong brown color seemed like an impenetrable wall to his want. The intensity of his hungry stare increased, powerful desire emanated from him as the allure of glamour stretched from his mind to hers with his body's silent demands.

Anticipation rippled across his sinuous form, it awakened the feral appetite of the snarling beast within. Soon Little Miss Sunshine would be under his spell, under him, begging him for mercy, and screaming out in soul destroying ecstasy for her new owner.

###

Lordy, that man was sin on a decadent stick.

He might be a stranger, a dangerously fanged one at that, but her body had a sudden hankering to know that blonde tower of sexual promise on a much more personal level and _that_ was more unsettling than his unexpected presence.

Sookie hadn't heard the vampire enter her store or felt the calming void of his mind as she'd been working in comfortable silence. His predatory gaze, eyes that appraised and consumed her every move, had her at a distinct disadvantage. For a moment, the unknown customer had looked down upon her with a commanding expectation that had her itching to go to him, to run her fingers along his muscled planes, to slip her tongue past those plush lips, to dip even lower and taste all of him but, just as suddenly as the compelling urge brushed against her mind, she ruthlessly clamped down on her own foolishness.

Denying the sudden attraction that hummed under her skin, ignoring the hard blonde length of perfectly sculpted muscle that stood in her service area, she shook herself to focus on the task at hand. Nervously, Sookie fell back on the pretense of good manners as she reiterated, "Is there something I can help you with tonight?"

A forced, almost congenial smile became a protective mask as she pointed toward the display counter; her samples of blood infused cordials were perfectly arranged, and questioned, "Is there something that you wanted to try?"

Fractionally, his blue eyes narrowed, assessed, scorched like a laser seeking its target. She felt singed to the marrow of her bones before he seemed to mentally shrug off his voiceless inquiry. For a moment, she felt contented relief at the absence of such intense scrutiny but, then, her prowler began to move.

_Mercy._

The man sure knew how to put his body in motion. How to make his manly swagger look like the most erotically graceful ballet erected and, somehow, to equally make his performance seem like a solo act only meant for her benefit. The notion was crazy but her thumping heart was already demanding an encore.

Reluctant humor burned through his sardonic tone, melting the words into her skin as if he was branding her with his lips as he mouthed, "Aren't you sweet?"

Instinctively, she rejected his claim, whether real or imagined, "Not really."

Her feisty dissent seemed to spark even more curiosity from the mysterious vampire as a half smirk lit up his coldly elegant features. Suddenly, his response seemed to calm the jagged undercurrent of fear that had crashed into her system once she'd noticed his presence earlier. No doubt, this man was certainly hard, potentially lethal, and probably a killer but there was also something undeniably reassuring about his eternal existence as well. Sookie had no doubt, if this guy had intended her real harm, her veins would already have been splayed wide open, fangs tearing flesh, blood pouring from her body like a crimson waterfall.

Surprisingly, the older vampire seemed content to simply observe her for now.

Or, was that toy with her?

Either way, she needed to bring things back to a more professional level where she was more at ease. The sharp jangle of the front door's overhead bells signaled the arrival of another patron who'd certainly let her do just that regardless of the unnamed vampire's desires.

###

Her space dripped Southern home and hearth.

It was fresh, clean, and oh so tempting with the scent of lemons polishing every surface. The artfully arranged goodies looked like they belonged on display at the local church social with their brightly colored ribbons tucked along the edge of the pristine cake stands. Crimson bands threaded in and out of the various sized dessert trays had hand printed tags attached that gave a tantalizing description of each item drizzled with just the cheekiest undertones.

_Red Velvet Insanity._

_Peachy-Scream Fondue._

_Death By Tartlets._

Surprisingly, the down home country miss had found a profitable niche that pandered to the need for humans to feel comfortable, normal even, when hosting vampires in social situations. And, equally hard to accomplish, she'd managed to stimulate the tired palate of bloodsuckers who'd been in a rut for decades if not centuries.

Even more appealing, the classic red appliances and white subway tile back splash would lend a coziness and sense of the familiar to both human and vampire patrons. One group would be put at ease by the décor and the other attracted by the color scheme. Plus, the whole placed felt like you'd just been invited into her personal kitchen for a little chat the minute you walked in the door.

She was selling the illusion of normality and intimacy all in one.

Intrigued, he listened to Miss Stackhouse, _Sookie_, as she'd pish-poshed the Mayor's wife into using her given name like they were childhood friends gossiping about her business. By the carefree banter going back and forth between the two women, you'd have thought they'd grown up braiding each other's hair on lazy summer afternoons with all of the confidences that the blonde chalice of perfection offered the other female.

"No, mam," Sookie swore again in all earnestness. "My first few attempts at 'bloody good bites' were nothing more than the result of over-achieving Southern manners, learned from my Gran, and, really, things just grew from there."

"Well," the chicly dressed politician's wife conspiratorially offered, "I'm so glad that you finally opened a shop here in Shreveport so that I can pop in when I need something on the spur of the moment instead of always having to think ahead and place an order."

As the older woman grabbed her purse and her smart little bag of blood based vampire delicacies, the Mayor's wife confirmed, "You did get our final count for the party at the end of the month didn't you dear."

"Oh, yes, mam," Sookie sweetly assured her prestigious human customer with a natural ease that just added to the woman's genuine allure and intrinsic value. She was certainly bartering her innate charm right along with her rare culinary delights.

Unfortunately for the bloody little baker, he wasn't buying or trading tonight. However, as Sheriff, he would certainly be leaving with what now belonged to him. That was a given.

###

The bells over the front door hadn't even stopped clamoring when she furiously demanded, "What do you think you are doing?"

"I'm inspecting your wares," the stranger's cocky tone pounded along her skin with an unmistakable double entendre. There was no doubt that his heated gaze sizzled along each of her curves like he was cataloguing their contours for a topographical map.

Sookie had had more than enough of his smarmy attitude when Mr. Tall, Blonde, and Obnoxious had chuckled at her obvious discomfort. Her eyes glowed with ire at his unprecedented gall. This was just ridiculous.

She was about to light into him with all the adept skill of a highly affronted Southern lady when her newly acquired nemesis knowingly looked at the container held by his large fingers and smirked, "Bloody Good Syrup for a sticky, sweet, full-bodied experience."

Instantly, she blushed in retreat, unable to go on the offensive. Thoroughly embarrassed, she pulled the crimson filled bottle from his cool hands and restocked it on the shelf. She couldn't meet his certain leer as she reluctantly explained, "It was _intended_ as a topping for the sorbet assortments I offer but it," she paused. "It seems to have found _other _uses."

Not wanting to be near this maddening stranger anymore, she stomped around the display counter toward her ovens. Soon, her liver slices, baked to be a crunchy foundation of perfection for one of her most popular appetizers would be done. Hopefully, she could just ignore the man who didn't seem to be in a rush to purchase anything but still seemed intent on browsing anyway.

Of course, his high and mighty attitude just wouldn't let her forget about his domineering presence when he followed closely behind her. Too close, actually.

"Your patrons find it a sensual treat in its own right," he huskily rejoined. The chill of his front hovering at her back made her feel like she was about to wear a cold, heavy sheet of icy muscle if she happened to stop short. His understanding of the product's rather creative uses readily apparent as the deadly lothario growled, "Do you?"

Angry, she flipped around to confront him, forgetting how close they were, and bristled, "You're not going to distract me by talking nasty."

Big.

Huge.

Mistake.

Quickly, he swept forward pinning her to the range. The corded muscles of his thighs pressed intimately between the folds of her skirt, spreading her, pushing her further against the heated stove, crowding out any thought of escape as he leaned down to whisper, "I already have."

_Gulp._

How the hell was she going to portray that he wasn't thoroughly correct now?

Luckily, she didn't have to feign ignorance; she was saved by the literal bell. The timer indicating that her latest batch of liver toasts was cooked to perfection buzzed incessantly, breaking up the sexual tension that had wrapped around them, gripped them, and had her wondering which was more dangerous to her sense of self-preservation- the sharp bite of his fangs or the hard edge of his sexual banter.

Good, gracious, now she had no doubt that that man was packing something plentiful in his jeans.


	2. Chapter 2

Half- heartedly, she wondered just how well Mr. Silent, Stalking, and Randy could stir with his considerable stick. Then, shamefully, reality slapped her fresh and impertinent thought square in the face. While she might know this stranger's relative girth, the rather large impression still digging against her flesh, Sookie certainly didn't know his name or anything else about him.

_Oops._

Blushing furiously, she tried to extricate herself from this thoroughly compromising position before a customer came in, or worse, she actually succumbed to something even more embarrassingly intimate than having a stranger quite literally between her thighs. The Southern belle looked up at the blonde vampire hopefully, a lilting plea honeyed her request for escape, "Please, Mister, stop messing around. I need to check the range before this batch burns."

Still flush against his much larger frame, not wanting to gaze up at what promised to be infinitely kissable lips or an equally smackable leer, Sookie waited as tactfully as she could for the stranger to release her so that she could quiet the oven's timer and salvage her baked goods. Unfortunately, that put her eyes to nipple with the hard outline of the man's t-shirt clad chest.

_Yikes._

She needed immediate release, probably in more ways than a lady should be willing to admit but, instead of granting her freedom, the intruder wedged himself more firmly against her. The brush of denim against her bare calves made her catch her breath as tingles of awareness crept along her nerves. She was almost paralyzed by attraction as the stranger placed a strong, firm hand along her jaw and whispered, "You will call me Master not Mister."

_Oh, hell no._

The forceful claim stole what was left of her calm, rational, thought as her eyes flashed rebelliously to the stranger's relentlessly domineering gaze. His throaty growl bit into her last morsel of restraint as she stubbornly clipped, "What?"

The demand ricocheted between them, disbelief chambered within her thundering heart before she angrily fired back at him, "You can't be serious."

Unbelievably, Mr. Long, Hard, and Contemptible seemed dreadfully so. Just what did he think was happening here?

Suddenly, Sookie erupted into a bundle of sputtering female outrage battering against the immovable wall of his desire. Her puny attempts did little to spring her from the trap of his heavy body crushed against hers but it did everything for her womanly pride. Just who the hell did this vampire think he was anyway?

She'd never be his to claim. For that matter, the baker would never think of herself as any vampire's property. Ever. The sooner this stranger got that notion through the thick void of his beautiful skull, well, the better.

Crossly, she denied, "Uh uh, buddy, I don't belong to you. Now get your hands off of me and then leave."

###

Sookie was saucy, defiant, and utterly scrumptious.

Her relative innocence was just a fringe benefit, one Eric would thoroughly enjoy as her new master. There would be no limit to the carnal delights that he would teach his headstrong pet once she understood her place was now beneath him.

Normally, he prided himself on being a thoroughly demanding but equally giving lover. Yet, when Sookie had haughtily excused him, callously turned her back to him to pull the tray of toasted whatevers out of her stove, and, basically, ignored his presence altogether, he'd almost lost it. All he could envision was selfishly flipping the hem of her frilly little dress up to smother that sassy apron bow in the glaze of his desire, rub her moist and tender backside with his personal seasoning, and possessively ram a length of his own meat deep into her heated box.

_Hard. _

Her walls would sear him, baste him in her juices, and leave him embroiled in the hottest little dish this kitchen would ever have to offer. He'd savor each thrust, whip her into a panty creaming frenzy, and grind out their mutual release but, unfortunately, they'd been missing one key ingredient to his debauched masterpiece.

_Privacy_.

Suddenly, her business had become far too active for his liking.

There'd been the nerdy tax attorney whose wife had tasked him to pick up something for the party that his new boss, a vampire of only thirty years, would be attending at their home over the weekend. He'd wisely taken the fondue over the sorbet so that his young kids wouldn't be tempted to try it. After that had come the shy librarian, her steps hesitant but the bookworm had desperately wanted to get a gift to express her gratitude to her neighbor, a vampiress of over two hundred years, who'd kindly lent the mousy brunette her original copy of _Pride and Prejudice _and shared a few of her more personal memories of Miss Austen as well. She'd happily taken the tartlets and tea set.

Now it was the noble doctor whose wife had been turned earlier in the year by a close colleague in the emergency room after she'd been the victim of a hit and run accident shortly after their wedding. The dark haired physician was looking for something that would still convey the love and devotion he felt for his spouse. He wanted something romantically normal amid all the chaos of change their relationship had undergone in the last few months.

Gingerly, Sookie had taken his hand and led him over to the arrangement of cordials and truffles.

Instinctively, he hadn't liked her touching another man but had recognized that Sookie was simply offering her light and compassion, tender mercy even, to the doctor who hadn't realized yet that the forever he'd thought he'd married would only belong to his eternally young bride. However, Eric couldn't contain his disdain for it all when Sookie had reassured the husband that his vampire wife would certainly appreciate the truffles he'd selected. After all, she'd amiably conferred; the treats were extremely popular and had even been a sell out on Sweetest Day. He couldn't help but snicker at the absurdity of his fellow vampires pandering to such a contrived human holiday.

Really, did the woman think that his kind was that sappy and sentimental? Or, did she really think they'd prefer her confections over blood straight from the human tap?

###

Damn, that egotistical vampire made her blood sing and _not_ in a good way.

She couldn't carry a tune in a bucket and, apparently, neither could her life source, it was caterwauling under her skin, pitched to take the arrogant bastard down after she'd heard his heartless snigger. How dare he mock a gentleman whose thoughts had been so wrought with torment and longing it had made her want to cry as he sought a way to help his wife through the trauma of being turned.

_Jerk._

Purposefully, she continued explaining to the heartbroken doctor, "The truffles are made of a hardened synthetic outer shell and then filled with a whipped mixture of Royalty Blend. They'll melt like regular chocolate in the heat but keep well at room temperature."

Reassuringly, Sookie smiled as the physician left for good measure, making sure that the doctor was well out of earshot, before she contemptibly rounded on the fanged nuisance that had quickly become the bain of her nighttime existence. Furiously, she spat, "So is it the idea of love between a vampire and a human that has you rudely making noises of amusement at someone's heartbreak? Or, is it the idea that a vampire could possibly enjoy the things that I make that you found so derisively funny?"

"Miss Stackhouse," he stated her name with a sultry mix of superiority and je ne sais quoi that suddenly had her system humming an entirely new melody, "Vampires are capable of feeling many things for humans but mostly it consists of hunger for the body or the blood."

Insolently, he fingered the crimson ribbon that hugged the scalloped edge of a porcelain display, the trimming suddenly reminded her of a woman's garter spread round a pale leg as he his words intimately taunted, "Love isn't necessary for vampires but, for some humans, it's a required illusion."

_Ouch_.

His answer didn't really surprise her but his obvious knowledge of her name certainly did. The stranger didn't outright deny that vampires could feel an emotion as deep as love but he didn't exactly concede that they could either. In fact, it seemed that the tall blonde didn't really believe either race truly experienced that particular sentiment just some delusional combination of blood, lust, and sex.

"How do you know my name," she asked, worried, not for the first time since she'd turned around and found him in her store. It was unnerving to have been up close and personal with a vampire, any man for that matter, when she didn't even know his name.

"I know many things about you," the blonde stranger cryptically answered in a low tone that shivered up her spine, "and you will learn much about me."

Slowly, his sinuous frame stalked toward her, stealing her ability to flea with each predatory step. As their gazes met, she was mesmerized by the feral beauty that overtook his features when his glistening fangs popped down to suck the very air from her lungs.

Possessively, he snarled with absolute supremacy, "Sookie, you are mine."

###

Swiftly, he leaned in, breathing in the decadent scent of fear that poured off of her with the burning intensity of the sun's pure rays. Irresistibly, he nuzzled into the crook of Sookie's neck, his nose sensuously tickled by her soft, blonde locks and the golden scent that clung to her frame.

"What the hell," she roughly demanded. "Get away from me."

_Never._

Surprisingly, she didn't cower under his fanged regard; she didn't even try to evade his animalistic presence. No, his Southern flower's delicate petals didn't wilt under his passionate scrutiny; in fact, Sookie seemed to bloom even more lushly before him. Her back was a ramrod stem of steel and her indomitable fragrance became more potent than the sweet nectar of sunlight.

"So," he drawled a questioning fang lightly along the satiny warmth of her neck as he teased, "are you a bloody good bite too?"

Instantly, he felt something within her shift. A power of sorts altered; a shine from within sparked as the woman defiantly stared him down. For a moment her forceful glare was almost hot enough to singe more than his pride but then it softened, became a shimmering glow of pleasure that beckoned him closer.

Gently, almost seductively, Sookie smiled up at him. The sparkle in her brown gaze seemed lit with an inner glee as she sweetly offered, "Master."

_Yes._

Rapture, pure and simple rippled through him at hearing her honeyed tone speak his dominance over her aloud. The delight was fleeting, gone all too quickly, when she spitefully added, "I rescind your invitation."

Sookie's victorious gleam was short lived, rapidly exchanged with an odd, puzzled frown of confusion when he didn't start blindly walking backward out of her store, compelled to leave by the magic that governed his kind.

"What," she questioned in mounting disbelief. "How come you're not leaving? Bill said-"

Sardonically, he interrupted her query, "That's certainly no way to treat your new landlord."

The tsk tsk of his tone reverberated between them. Visibly, she shuddered as the realization of his statement sunk in and he loved every single second of it. She didn't have the power to bar him from her work space. She couldn't make him leave her precious business now; it was a heady knowledge and he basked in the enjoyment of her displeasure.

_Perfect._

"What," the blonde's words unhappily tripped over themselves, "Bill didn't say anything about this. Why would he do that? Why would he sell you my building?"

Amused at the uncertainty now tainting Sookie's questions, he clarified, "Mr. Compton's been a very bad boy. He really didn't have much of a choice."

"What do you mean," she suspiciously peppered him with inquiries wanting more information. "Why would he do this? Is Bill okay?"

Disdain for the other vampire dripped from his exposed fangs as the Sheriff sneered, "Mr. Compton is no longer of your concern. You will do well to remember that."

Firmly, Eric tempered his contempt for the other man knowing that it would probably get him nowhere with Sookie. How a vampire of Bill's relatively tender years had thought he could partner with the American Vampire League to overthrow his Queen was almost as idiotic as claiming a woman of Sookie's caliber then squandering her sexuality by leaving her untouched.

He wouldn't make the same mistake; Eric had every intention of rubbing himself all over every delectable inch of Sookie's tantalizing curves.

_Soon_.

There was a trace of warmth underlying his powerful statement as he informed Sookie, "You are under my protection now."

Indecision blanketed the blonde's features as she reluctantly asked, "What do you really want from me?"

"Everything," he immediately replied. There was no doubt, no hesitation, no ambiguity.

Before, when he'd been summarily given Compton's possessions in Area 5 by the Tribunal as part of the other man's punishment, he'd simply wanted her body and her blood but, now, he wanted it all. Meeting her had certainly changed his desires for his unexpected pet. When he was through, he'd possess every part of Sookie Stackhouse, from her stubborn temper to her untapped pleasure and everything else in between. He'd be indelibly written on her very soul.

"You can't have it," she declared scornfully. Her arms folded over her chest in a protective stance as she mutinously ordered, "I want you to leave."

Obviously, Sookie wouldn't be backing down easily when she added, "Now."

_Even better._

He wouldn't retreat either. Sookie would never be able to outflank him. All too soon, she'd be at the mercy of a lusty Viking intent on plundering all of her depths. This was only the beginning; the start of something he knew would simply be spectacular.

Now if he could just get rid of the customer's that kept walking in through her front door his night would be just about perfect.

Purposefully, the Sheriff turned his back to the giggling duo of coeds, not wanting to encourage their blatant interest in him or delay their imminent departure. He had enough to explain to his Sookie before the annoying red head arrived later, he didn't need to deal with the possibility of petty female jealousy from his new human as well. Clearly, Sookie was an intelligent woman and would be able to differentiate his focused interest in her from his blatant lack of attention to the tittering Greek pledges.

Maybe, she would have appreciated his dismissive attitude toward the young women a little more if his own possessive instincts hadn't surged to the snarling forefront when another customer of the decidedly male persuasion prowled into what was now _his_ domain.

_Stupid tiger._


	3. Chapter 3

Vicious darkness stalked him; possessive fury relentlessly hunted him.

Doggedly, bloodlust effortlessly pursued Eric as an all too unnerving smile dawned across Sookie's golden features welcoming the other man into her store as naturally as the rising sun. Rays of happiness filtered across her face, pleasure spread across her supple lips, and the warmth of her luminous gaze intimately caressed the interloper's all too smug countenance.

Obviously, Sookie knew the tiger and, even worse, liked him.

_Intolerable._

Seething, Eric watched the smelly beast practically claw at his new treasure, the feline's meaty paws digging into the not altogether platonic embrace of Sookie's soft flesh, and almost savagely ripped through over a thousand years of restraint and dominance over his own ruthless Viking temper.

"Baby girl," the jungle cat purred contentedly from their mutually entwined greeting, "you look good enough to eat."

Demurely, Sookie blushed in response, a pink tinged wall of inexperience and naiveté barring anything else from happening but it was obvious that the Bengal wanted to wrap more than just his meaty limbs around the tasty blonde morsel in his arms. The cat desperately wanted to cover her with his mangy hide and the stench of his striped inferiority.

Hungrily, the tiger sniffed, inhaling deeply for Sookie's intoxicating scent like a greedy little kitten trying to steal a bit more than his allotted share of kibble. Nostrils flared wide to soak all of her in, the tawny skinned man salaciously grinned in anticipation like he was already licking his blood smeared whiskers after a successful kill, then, just as quickly, Quinn pulled away, seemingly troubled, as the angry cat nearly roared his displeasure.

That's right, fur ball, my scent is all over her.

Never doubt, silly kitty, you're in my territory now; where Sookie is mine.

Anger, ravenous and predatory, fought for release. It was apparent as Quinn's dusky features rippled with powerful energy; each muscle visibly struggled not to shift at the unspoken claim wafting from Sookie's womanly frame.

_Much better._

Fangs bared, Eric greeted the legendary fighter with the condescending smirk of a superior being; one that knew his competition was of no consequence as he implacably stated, "This woman will be mine."

###

Tension flashed like lightning across the store's interior as two animals primitively faced off against each other. Maybe, if she was a different sort of girl, one that thrived on boorish, psycho frat boy behavior; Sookie would have been oddly flattered by their primal instincts just as the owners of both sets of jumbo sized canines probably expected but she truly wasn't. Really, were her ovaries just supposed to do backflips worthy of a Gold Medal for their flagrant display of unbending possessive male pageantry? Was it supposed to wantonly land her on their personal version of a pommel horse as well?

_Men._

At the moment, Sookie loathed anything that walked with a third leg dangling self-importantly between their thighs but especially those masculine beings with fangs or tails. Really, could supernatural males be any more archaic, territorial, and plain old annoying even when they had absolutely nothing to be overly protective about?

This was ridiculous; she didn't belong to either one of them no matter what Mr. Tall, Clueless, and Assaulting snarled to the contrary.

Sure, the man was sinfully put together. Sookie would willingly cop to finding his cool blonde physique scandalously attractive because her sexual desires were normal, just like any other red blooded woman's, even if her telepathy wasn't standard issue on other female models. However, becoming rather up close and personal with his domineering attitude put quite a damper on the potential for kindling that ardor.

She wasn't a fang-banging hussy who self-loathingly yearned for anything with spikes of slurping demise to notice her so that she could be used in vile, degrading, and prurient ways without her consent. Nor would she hide that she thoroughly enjoyed a trashy romance novel or two thousand. The wickedly naughty things that the brooding, reluctant, hero could get away with within the dog eared pages of a literary smut fest were vastly different than what would wind her clock in the black and white text of the real world.

She simply wasn't the kind of woman to be claimed in such a barbarous manner.

_Ever._

Annoyed, she scolded both men before one of them had the audacity to spray a bodily fluid on her leg like she was a freaking fire hydrant. "Quinn, stop snarling and, you," she paused significantly because the baker didn't even know how to address the blonde intruder who'd suspiciously claimed to be her new landlord, "leave before I call the police and tell them that you've been harassing me."

Instantly, the vampire's hard form was towering over her, the only thing he'd lost from his previous vantage point was the smug grin that had framed his lethal points, the deadly pillars that supported his low admonition as he rumbled, "I don't respond well to threats."

The warning vibrated through her, touched off tremors of uncertainty but she maintained level ground despite the landslide of his potential wrath. Temporarily, she might be trapped in the muck of this testosterone induced insanity but she'd never bury her free will under the rubble of this vampire's patronizing beliefs.

"Neither do I," she firmly replied, her statement an anchor against the churning intensity that raged in the mercurial storm of his blue gaze.

Then, foolishly, Quinn tried to take charge of the situation. Adeptly, he nuzzled in between them, pulling her to the side, using his massive body as a prowling shield of muscled animosity as he dismissively instructed, "Babe, I'll take care of this."

_Idiot._

Quinn's actions seemingly subtracted her from the bloody equation puzzling them but their problem was suddenly compounded by the addition of her cutting ire. "Thank you," she chided with about as much sweetness as a fresh squeezed lemon, "but I can take care of myself."

"Awe, Babe," Quinn cajoled over his shoulder without letting the dam of his physical resistance against the vampire break. "Don't be that way. I only want what's best for you."

Sookie knew exactly whose interests the tiger had uppermost in mind while exhibiting his predatory instincts tonight. Unfortunately, her needs weren't anywhere near the top of Quinn's mental list.

###

"Careful, tiger," he calmly ordered, thoroughly enjoying Sookie's ornery display of independence from the Were and her strange ability to withstand the blasted heat of his own anger as well. She certainly was a delightful treat, with intriguing layers that tempered her honeyed scent, making her bittersweet richness something he couldn't wait to indulge in more this evening. With certainty, he added, "It is not my pet that needs protection from me."

"She's not yours," Quinn immediately snarled back in challenge. "At least, she doesn't have to be."

Oddly, there was a tenor of confident knowledge in the kitty's tone that belied Quinn's relative lack of power. The feline was a strong, fierce fighter in the pits with more than the fabled nine lives hiding under his skin but he still held no position of authority in Eric's world. Yet, the light of conviction that glowed in the cat's eyes was bothersome as the other man stated, "Sophie Ann is aware of the ruling from the Tribunal but doesn't feel that Sookie must accept your ownership. After all, she shouldn't be punished for Bill's actions."

So his regent had duplicitously sent the tiger, someone who Sookie was already acquainted with, to parlay a negotiation for her. His monarch's backing explained the Were's lack of deferential respect but not the feline's possessive regard for his new pet. The ancient vampire had no doubt that the 'she' in question, the one Quinn mentioned who shouldn't be penalized, wasn't referring to Sookie at all despite what the dirty cat wanted the blonde woman to think. It seemed that the Queen of Louisiana had decided to flex a little royal muscle after the assassination plot had become the public fodder of her court.

Unfortunately, the immature red head had decided to strike her pose in a competition where the winner had already been judged by the Magister. Sophie Ann would score little by going against The Authorities ruling but it seemed that she wanted his new pet anyway.

_Interesting._

Unpleasantly, Eric was distracted from his political musings when Sookie desperately took Quinn's hand in her own and pled, "What happened to Bill? What do you know about this? What should I do now?"

Anger, sharp and strident, cut into his tone as Eric furiously spat, "You really think that he is trustworthy?"

"Like I can trust you," she automatically scoffed back in brutal defiance, "You practically fang-raped me and I still don't even know your name."

Instantly, Sookie's words quelled the rebuke he'd intended after the blonde embodiment of vampire perfection had reached for another instead of looking to him, her rightful Master, for assistance. Maybe knowing that the baker's rather luscious ingredients were already considered his had caused Eric to act a little over exuberantly on his instantaneous desire for her and, now; he was paying the price of not using more discretion with his pretty bottle of sunshine.

The tiger grinned in triumph at him, coddling Sookie to his side as the cat attempted to reassure her with banal promises that he'd take care of everything. After all, they were more than friends, he'd never let anything happen to her, the Were swore with the annoying tenacity of a broken record, the drivel of his lyrics playing over and over again until they simply lost all meaning.

With each skip of Quinn's repetitive tune, Sookie's hostility spread like the aggravating drizzle of an overcast fall day, misting the entire room with her unhappiness. Her discontent became slick, wet with the deluge of misery that continued to rain down on them with each of the tiger's useless platitudes. Suddenly, the room was flooded with the putrid scent of her infuriated despair threatening to drown him in the foul odor of her defeated emotion.

Yet, contempt continued to roll forth from Sookie's mouth like the unyielding current of the Mississippi, mighty, frigid, and strong. "Now that I know what you want from me," she paused to move away from both of them before stonily promising him, "You will never get it."

_Unacceptable_.

Perhaps Godric was correct; he may need to broaden his repertoire when dealing with humans. It was obvious that Sookie had previously held no ill will toward his kind, she even had a business that catered to the desire for equality in the human vampire dynamic and, yet, he'd treated her as if she'd been little more than a nicely dressed fang-banger.

His Maker would not have been pleased. Not only had he let raw sentiment rule his actions but he'd also abused the sensibilities of a human who should have been given the utmost care and respect as his pet.

Contrition was a bitter pill to swallow but in well over a thousand years of existence, he'd figuratively tasted worse.

###

Viciously, they'd chained him in silver, left him to rot in a coffin until his skin withered to nothing more than brittle leather strips binding the skeletal frame that would remain all too alert to his torture for the next five years. Cruelly, he'd watch his body crumble to nothing but dust around him.

Fervently, Sookie wished that she hadn't had to touch Quinn earlier to unknowingly cull the particulars of Bill's gruesome situation from his mind. Somehow, it now made her feel sullied to have been in his embrace knowing that the Were callously wished another of her friends, someone that she cared for, such harm simply because Bill was a vampire.

That kind of prejudice and hate had just never made a lick of sense to her but so little of her life did after tonight.

Now that she knew Bill wasn't coming back any time soon, she'd need to follow his advice for such a dire situation. The Southern gentleman had always told her that if something happened to him, she'd need to seek out the Sheriff at his bar and formally request his protection. Certainly, tonight's debacle had to count as an emergency worthy of that extreme action; after all, the infamous Viking was probably the only vampire who could keep Mr. Broad, Primal, and Delusional, plus the rest of his kind, from devouring her whole.

Thinking of the blonde miscreant seemed to make the stranger's sensible tone just that much more gratingly insolent when he formally stated, "Forgive me, Miss Stackhouse, allow me to introduce myself and, perhaps, start our first meeting over."

Rolling her eyes at his faux show of respect, Sookie folded her arms peevishly across her chest and waited for her would be- attacker, stalker, and rapist - to identify his fanged self. "Fine," she haughtily rejoined, "That would certainly make it easier for Sheriff Northman to track you down after I tell him about your shameful behavior."

Suddenly, she was wary of the amused twinkle that flashed in the stranger's eyes as his low tone sensually caressed each word, "I am your new landlord, Master, and the Sheriff of Area Five."

_Fuck._

Abruptly, Sookie wanted to scratch the smirk right off of the blonde's condescending face when he winked his latest addition, "I'm also known as the Northman but you may call me Eric."

This was Eric Northman; this was the strong, loyal, fair minded vampire that Bill had told her to seek out if she was ever in trouble and Bill was no longer available to protect her?

_Seriously._

Panicked, Sookie knew that she was screwed now and, likely, very literally, later too, by the same vampire that was supposed to be her saving grace. Damn. She was in so much bloody trouble now.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Thanks to everyone who has placed this story on their favorites list, given it an alert, or, especially, submitted a review. You are too kind.**

* * *

><p>She should have learned long ago to never say never; unfortunately, that was a harsh lesson the former barmaid had been doomed to repeat like the annoying knock, knock jokes that Coby and Lisa favored.<p>

_Maddening._

Freedom had been so close, independence a highly sought after partner that was almost within her firm grasp. They'd nearly been coupled in a mental waltz that would have her sachet past the insufferable Sheriff without him being able to do a single thing to bar her escape. Her footwork had been flawless, her form simply perfection as Sookie used Quinn to choreograph the situation to her liking. While the baker hadn't wanted to move to New Orleans, or worse, ever be under the Queen's vile manner of protection, Mr. Long Dong of Vampire Law hadn't known that and, even better, he had been reluctantly arranging a new set of steps between them if it meant that she wouldn't leave his area. She'd powerfully framed the deal to her liking, another little skip ball change and she'd have been twirling back to her own solo production without any fangs accompanying her.

Then, unexpectedly, her red headed employee had crashed their somber little soiree. The other female cut into the nimble sway of her negotiations and forever changed the tempo, her rhythm broken, her moves out of tune, Sookie's dance card was now permanently held by the opportunistic bastard all because of a crimson waterfall of tears.

_Damn_.

"You can't do this," she angrily challenged not wanting to believe that the virtual stranger would callously make a decision that was so cruel and unfeeling toward her friend and worker.

"I can and I will," he evenly rebutted. "Jessica is still a relatively new vampire; Bill was a fool to indulge her this way."

"Jessica isn't like that," Sookie hastily denied over her young friend's heartbroken sniffles, the girl's melancholy still flowed in an unrelenting cascade of red down her cheeks. "She loves Hoyt, she'd never hurt him. She-"

"As her Sheriff and, more importantly, her new Master, that's not a chance I'm willing to take," his low tone slithered across her skin, his words coiled in hissing warning, ready to viciously strike when he added, "unless you'd like to make a deal."

Though the poisonous sting had been expected, it still burned, singeing her pride and leaving nothing, not even a charred ember of hope as she fumed, "You disgust me."

"Perhaps I'll grow on you," the blonde vampire stood his ground with a sensual promise that decried his subtly uncertain statement as if he thought her surrender to him, to all aspects of his domineering sexuality, was already a foregone conclusion.

She was about to caustically respond with something about preferring anything, maybe a marrow destroying cancer over his vile attentions, when Quinn snarled with a feral undertone, "Babe, you don't need to do this, not to save a vamp from being taken from her fang banging boyfriend."

Somehow, the tiger's unmitigated prejudice made her capitulation just a little bit easier to bear. When Sookie looked at the weeping red head desperately clutching the duffle bag slumped over her lap, she didn't see a monstrous vampire who ruthlessly acted without feeling. Instead, she saw her pale friend tormented by the potential loss of her first love on the very night they were moving in together. A vulnerable female constrained by the antiquated rules governing a feudalistic vampire society and trapped in an existence that she'd never asked for or deserved all because the girl had been attacked by a trio of demented vampires in Sookie's place.

"Yes, I do," she adamantly scolded Quinn biting back the guilt that always accompanied her memory of Jessica's turning. "She's my friend."

That was all the explanation that the Were was getting. If he didn't understand how important friendship and loyalty were to her by this point, he never would. Besides, it wasn't like Quinn's solution would entail anything more than being the Queen's bloody sex toy like her unfortunate cousin Hadley no matter what he thought to the contrary.

Turning away from Quinn's pawing denial, Sookie leveled a steady warning upon the Sherriff, "I could never be with you the way I was with Bill."

Her new landlord's answering smirk mocked her assertion as he slowly proclaimed, "That's alright, unlike Mr. Compton, I'll require either blood or sex."

There was an unmistakable sneer of victory in the vampire's tone as he amended, "Lady's choice."

###

She'd almost had him humbled, hobbled, without leverage in their side stepping tango all because he didn't want Sookie to actually leave his territory. For the first time in his eternal existence, Eric had almost allowed a human to gain the upper hand in their relationship.

_Unbelievable._

He didn't need Sookie's permission or acceptance. The beautiful vessel of sunny rebellion had been given to him by the Magister so the normal rules of a human's willingness no longer applied. After all, what deterrent was it to a convicted vampire if a confiscated pet could simply leave their new master?

No, by vampire law and tradition, Eric could simply haul her away right now, barbarically throw her over his shoulder and bind her luscious curves to him by chains if necessary. Her choice in the matter was of no consequence according to the Authority and, yet, he didn't want her submission brought about that way. He may not be able to compel her compliance through glamour, as he'd learned when he'd tried earlier, but he certainly wasn't going to force her by rape either.

Truthfully, Eric wanted her completely willing and needed her desperately wanting him in return. He planned to vanquish every mutinous curve of her flesh; he wanted to quell each bristling murmur of defiance in the war of stubborn wills suddenly raging between them. Yet, he couldn't be victorious if she wasn't even on the battlefield of seduction and, if Sookie accepted Quinn's escort to Sophie Ann, she might never be for he'd have to politically move against his Queen through The Authority to get Sookie back. She'd certainly be worth the organizational hassle but why waste the time and the machinations necessary when there was an easier solution. He'd been prepared to concede this skirmish, to temporarily drop his proprietary airs to keep Sookie willingly residing in his area when the annoying red head had come barging in virtually crying Sookie's white flag of surrender for her.

_Brilliant._

Eric was never one to let opportunity pass him by especially when it would quickly gain him something he suddenly wanted very dearly. It mattered little which option Sookie actually chose, he could make either work toward her sensual downfall and his utter satisfaction and complete fulfillment. No, the only thing that counted out of this decision was that by making a selection, Sookie was squarely placing herself under his dominion all for an infantile vampire that he didn't really want underfoot anyway.

_Priceless_.

"So," he lazily drawled without moving a muscle, "which shall it be?"

"You know," Sookie petulantly countered with a scowl trying to delay the inevitable, "you could have just asked me nicely?"

Humoring her, already knowing how Sookie truly felt for the time being about their impending arrangement, Eric cynically offered, "Miss Stackhouse, would you like to be mine?"

The deafening hush that settled over his blonde bundle of sunshine did little to dissuade him for they both knew that her pointed silence implied consent that she'd already given the moment Sookie knew that she could possibly change her friend's fate.

"Well, either way, you can deliver the goods tomorrow evening when you accompany me at Fangtasia," he tauntingly broke the quiet lull in the now closed shop. "Then I'll see to it that both of you girls are presented as mine."

With a withering glance in his direction, his new pet ignored him as she moved to console Bill's nearly useless progeny. The child still didn't understand that because of Sookie, she'd be heading back home tonight to play house with her oversized lug of a boyfriend.

Speaking of houses, it was time for him to proverbially clean his. With supreme pleasure, he nodded dismissively toward Quinn, "You can scamper back to New Orleans now and let Sophie Ann know that your hunt will always be unsuccessful."

Mirthlessly, he grinned at the tiger's ferocious snarl of goodbye, suddenly, lacking the supreme pleasure he should have been feeling when Eric took note of the utter disdain tingeing Sookie's brown orbs, her transcendent light momentarily dimmed while she stared him down until he wisely decided to take his leave as well.

###

The fiery corkscrews that framed the younger woman's face seemed to shimmer with the heat of Sookie's unspoken rage. Her anger bouncing higher with each springy curl as Jessica wailed, "What are we going to do?"

Sternly, Sookie clamped down on her internal ire pulling herself together, knowing that she could wallow in her own personal bath of misery at home but, for now, she needed to show a resilient front, "We're going to go on just as before."

"What," Jessica demanded in disbelief, "how can you say that? Bill's gone. Sherriff Northman's now my step-Maker and you belong to him. Sookie," she cried, "this is bad. Really bad."

"Somehow, we'll make this work," she forcefully reassured them both running a soothing hand along the edge of her apron. "He can't be that horrible or Bill wouldn't have told me to seek him out if I needed help."

"Maybe," Jessica's face scrunched up in doubt, "but there's no way Bill would have been okay with the ultimatum that Sheriff Northman just handed you. Which are you going to choose?"

"Well, I'm certainly not sleeping with him," she replied with absolute certainty. There was no way that her virginity was going to be lost for anything other than pure old fashioned lust and affection no matter what the sinfully attractive Sheriff might want otherwise.

"I guess it'll be blood," she unhappily shrugged in defeat.

"Are you sure, Sookie," her friend hesitantly asked. "You really don't need to do this for me, Hoyt and I will find a way somehow. You could always go to the Queen."

"We both know that if Bill was really trying to bring her down, Sophie Ann isn't an option," she replied with a falsely calm acceptance of her situation. "Let's get you cleaned up and home."

"Thank you," her young friend sheepishly offered. "I appreciate-"

"No, don't do that," she swiftly interrupted. "We both know that you wouldn't be accountable to all this vampire hoopla if it weren't for me to begin with. You don't owe me any gratitude. You know that."

"Sookie, I don't hold you responsible for what happened," her companion denied with emphasis. "You know that as well."

"Sure," she negligibly acknowledged not wanting to argue this tired horse anymore tonight when there were so many other nagging issues to beat to death. "Besides," she added with a defiant twist, "who says that Sheriff Northman is going to want to keep me."

###

Written into the inky shadows of the night, he'd read the consolation and companionship the two new females in his life had offered each other after they thought he was no longer aware of them. It was oddly touching to see the care and affection that Sookie would so easily offer to those of his kind.

She was a veritable cornucopia of the better human emotions- love, kindness, compassion, loyalty, strength, even courage. Plus, her fiery defiance was a tasty compliment to her tantalizing form. She was a bountiful feast of vampire perfection.

So why hadn't Bill partaken? And, if his ease dropping proved accurate, why had Compton urged Sookie to seek him out if she was ever in trouble? Plus, why was his Queen so interested in her when Sookie obviously didn't have an affinity for the monarch's persuasion?

Silently, he listened to Sookie's tears track down her face to ignominiously splash into her bath water wishing that the sound didn't unhappily echo within his own undead heart. He may have many questions about his new human and the blonde enchantress may have a few obstinate tricks up her sleeve but her continued sorrow might be the only thing that would stop him from keeping Sookie forever.


	5. Chapter 5

Making a deal with the devil really was all about the finer details; at least, that's what her wise Gran had always told her. The sage matriarch may have never encountered the wily likes of Eric Northman's wickedly immoral backside but the older woman had surely known that contrary to what the popular idiom expressed, the devil's fangs could easily be bound by the very details he'd dictated with his slippery tongue. Her hell-born landlord had been dangerous enough to her well-being last night, Sookie was determined not to find out how wet, mobile, and talented that particular piece of undead flesh might be in his non-verbal pursuits as well.

_Pity._

It was all just a matter of semantics anyway; otherwise, people who made deals with the nefarious ruler of the underworld, virtuous people like her, wound up bound, chained, and bonded to sin without their consent. No doubt, the exasperating Sheriff thought that Sookie would be in that damnable position soon enough but the diabolical blonde length of cocky self-assurance had never faced her impenetrable wall of pure manners and gracious hospitality before either.

No matter what, this flower of southerly womanhood wasn't going to let him win their little contest of wills. Her Gran had told her long ago that if the Stackhouse women had been wearing that threadbare gray, there'd be no need for the South to rise again. It simply would have never surrendered to death in the first place.

_Unconquerable._

Plus, Sookie was certain that there was a reason someone had coined the phrase kill them with kindness. From what she already knew about this particularly loathsome vampire, he was just the candidate for her special brand of gentile consideration.

_Wonderful._

Mischief laced each delicate confection that she pulled off the parchment lined trays spread out in front of her. Early on, she'd found out that any blood- whether human, synthetic, or animal- could be cooled, hardened, or whipped into a stiff explosion of culinary pleasure for those whose palates ran to plasma centered delights. Each type of blood base used a varying amount of additives to help it along, some more than others, but they all required one simple thing- her steady hand. Always one to strive for perfection, she'd worked especially hard on her latest creations. In fact, one could say that she'd literally put her own blood, sweat, and tears into each and every one of these delicacies.

With a naughty little grin, she carefully placed the last of her special batch into the doily trimmed container, lining the goodies up with a military precision that would have left Lee himself impressed. Then, swiftly, she knotted the decorative ribbon tightly sealing her arsenal inside.

Clasping her purse along with her bounty of explosive treats, she looked at her friend and asked, "Ready?"

The younger red head shrugged her shoulders in response clearly hoping that Sookie might change her mind but then sighed in surrender to her boss as she picked up the remaining trays of nearly identical cordials muttering, "I guess so."

"Well, then," Sookie grinned magnanimously, "let's show Sheriff Northman the type of bloody good hospitality that he'll never forget."

###

Her feminine allure called to him like a beacon in the night, illuminating the shadows cast by the dark need of his desire, and baring the pure light of her soul amid the sordid masses lingering in his bar.

Her sunny disposition certainly didn't fit in with the gloomy dregs of humanity suddenly surrounding Sookie threatening to dim the sparkle of sweet defiance in her chocolate gaze. It was all too apparent to Eric as his blonde treasure entered Fangtasia in her tight little frock of innocence, arms draped with platters full of cordiality, that Sookie had an untapped fire of burning retribution smoldering underneath the darling façade that she presented the rest of the antiquated South.

There was no doubt in Eric's mind that his inexperienced pet was steaming mad underneath those layers of coolly prim and properly starched cotton. Though she might not realize it yet, Sookie's bloodthirsty lust for his comeuppance simmered temptingly under her luscious skin just waiting for him to make it boil over as she perfunctorily smiled at Pam with a seasoned greeting and outstretched hand.

Privately, he'd be more than happy to provide the spark that would shamelessly scald them both with the mutual release of the sexual tension brewing between them but for now he needed to make sure the tiny spitfire didn't literally torch him before Sookie was officially announced as part of his personal retinue. He'd assumed that his unplucked flower would look around his smoky den of virtual iniquity with disdain clearly written across the delightful petals of her pert features but, instead, the feisty woman had dug her dainty heels into the bar's stained concrete soil and planted herself behind the illusion that she was simply attending something akin to an off-color church social.

Clearly, his child was uncertain of what to make of Sookie's odd human behavior as Pam watched her and Jessica make their way toward an unoccupied table. Both women quickly set up a three tiered display of Sookie's hand crafted specialties seemingly impervious to the carnal desires thrumming along around them or the unified snick of distended fangs dropping that had accompanied his naïve treasures ostensibly guileless actions.

_Silly girl._

Curious, he simply took in the entire collaborative production from his lofty perch on the dais easily keeping the nearly rabid vampires at bay with a single quelling glance. Once Sookie was safely at his side, his kind would be free to sample whatever party favors his pet had brought along but, until then, he expected them to keep their distance from his luminous treat.

Of course, it would have helped if his golden bounty had kept hers as well.

Instead, Sookie had seemed intent on traipsing her nicely rounded bosom around his bar like twin calling cards, individually charming each of the vampires present with a sweet introduction to the pebble hard finer points of her womanly frame during their oh so lovely chit chat until there wasn't a fang in the room barely tolerating the sheer torture of her pleasantries including him.

With an affected nonchalance that the pulsing hardness in his leather pants belied, Eric leveled his steady gaze upon Sookie's young companion and merely crooked two fingers of summons in the women's direction effectively clipping the wings of his new social butterfly.

###

She took her time fluttering from one void mark to the next, flitting the fine line between epically stupid and brilliantly devious as she charmed her way around the fanged fixtures in the bar with a grace and aplomb that would have done her Gran proud in any other situation. Pointedly, she ignored the only pair of pearled erections that truly mattered until she virtually had every fang on edge, salivating over her every move, capturing everything, even the slight quaver in her heartbeat as Jessica brought her to Mr. High, Mighty, and Mistaken for her presentation.

"Sookie Stackhouse," his deep tone intimately caressed each syllable of her name with just the right balance of indulgent humor and unbanked desire, "I see you've been doing your personal best to further promote the mainstreaming cause within my establishment."

Artlessly, she returned without rancor, "My business could be a poster child for the movement."

"Yes," he agreed with a double edged wit that neither of them found particularly funny at the moment, "you were certainly advertising something tonight."

_Ass._

Unwantedly, she felt the brush of his accusing gaze warmly touch each of her curves. Slowly torturing every womanly turn with a thorough perusal of condemnation, leaving no doubt that he would be equally meticulous privately confining himself within the hidden bends and heated cells of her body as the Sheriff implacably sentenced, "You were bringing me something that now belongs to me."

_Presumptuous Ass._

Swallowing past the surge of unwanted attraction and blatant disgust that eddied with equal measure in the in the pools of her swirling uncertainty, Sookie countered with a flourishing pomp and circumstance that she didn't particularly feel, "Sheriff, this is meant for you."

Warily, he blinked at the unsullied box that she held out between them in her petite hands like it was something foul and questioned, "What is that?"

Smiling, she graced him with a dutiful explanation, "The goods that you wanted delivered."

"That was not our arrangement," the powerful vampire opposite her instantly refuted amid the loud bustle of the bar but Sookie knew that every fanged person in attendance heard the verbal dispute like a hushed pall of silence had befallen the watering hole.

Innocently, Sookie batted her lashes at him, fanning the flames of fiery tension between them even higher with her pleased contradiction, "I'm complying word for word with your stipulations."

The baker emphasized her point as she shoved the cache of her capitulation even closer toward him and offered, "These were made especially for you with my blood and are what this lady has chosen to deliver to you."

Instantaneously, the fire of discord surrounding them reached a fever pitch. Resignedly, Sookie waited for the devil to lash out and burn her with licks of the singeing futility he felt for he'd summarily been bound by the semantic laps of his own tongue.

###

The avid interest, the ravenously hungry scrutiny that suddenly permeated his bar over the stench of desperation rolling off his regular patrons underscored how badly Eric had underestimated his new pet. Even in her relative innocence, Sookie was a refreshingly formidable opponent and an unwitting master of perception and timing.

_Wench_.

Overtly, the little bundle of defiant sunshine hadn't challenged Eric's dominion over her or besmirched the honor of his word before the vampires under his authority but she'd certainly shouted that message loud and clear to anyone smart enough to read between the lines of their unspoken battle. And, his subjects certainly weren't illiterate.

Regardless of the Authorities backing, he might have a fanged insurrection on his hands if Eric tried to openly renegotiate terms with his human at this point. Her seemingly harmless social niceties earlier had ensured that he was now flirting with the possibility that one or more of his minions might lose control and challenge his claim if things weren't taken into hand with an iron fist soon.

Even Pam had raised a tenuous eyebrow in near revolt as she sardonically chided, "I'm beginning to see what all the fuss is about."

_Bitch._

Eric hadn't missed that his child's lust filled gaze was still resolutely settled on the womanly frame of his new pet along with the singular regard of his other vampire constituents. Their combined yearning whispered along Sookie's curves making his blonde treasure stand more proudly erect before him as her pulse sang a lilting melody that enticed their ragged desire, making them sway torward to the siren call of her heartbeat.

Reluctantly, he conceded the duel of their sharp wills for the moment and placated, "A pity for me."

Purposefully, Eric took the proffered box from Sookie's small hand and inclined his head toward the vacant chair beside him and ordered, "Sit."

Wisely, his gilded Southern flower didn't balk at his command as she daintily balanced her feminine form on the edge of the padded seat next to him. Suddenly, it seemed that his rebellious pet enjoyed the relative protection the wood frame and his close proximity provided as she surveyed the numerous white pillars of sharp craving still bared in her direction and moved fractionally closer to him.

_Clever._

Dubiously, he eyeballed the sealed container held within his large grasp and ignored the swell of discontent hissing around him. Unnecessarily, he breathed out a measure of annoyance, feeling more than a tad foolish at his inexplicable aversion to his prettily packaged consolation prize. He didn't even want to venture beyond the outer shell of the daintily boxed treats when he'd have eagerly plunged fast and hard past any other barriers to taking Sookie's blood in its more natural form.

Infuriatingly, the carton's smooth, white sides looked altogether too feminine like the lacy edge of Sookie's tight little smock. The gently curved angles would easily peel back, promptly revealing gloriously naked bits of bloody goodness with just the slightest tug on the stiff length of ribbon that tied it all together.

_Fuck_.

Determinedly, he now ruthlessly popped the cherry red barrier with an expert flick of his wrist not wanting to linger over the sultry comparisons to what should have been at his first taste of her. The bow quickly unraveled to taunt and tempt his senses with the ripe full- bodied flavor that sprang from the tiny morsels bared to him all for his tongue's sumptuous delight.

Instantly, his nostrils flared at the sensual bouquet swelling before him. Hungry eyes ravenously landed on Sookie's innocently dazed features as his fingers gingerly caressed a generously rounded peak for far longer than necessary. Then, mercilessly, he plucked at the fragile tip of the frothy little cordial; fang extended.

Even with her sublime scent as a heady warning, the Viking had been caught off guard by the sheer ecstasy that rolled across his tongue in untamed waves that were unpredictably wild like the North Sea.

_Fucking Bliss._

Desperately, Eric wanted, needed, more than just the plundered remains of his Sookie sampler. Without thought, the Viking hastily pulled his shocked treasure across the bounty of his hardened lap because his tasty gem wasn't leaving his side until Eric got some bloody answers.


	6. Chapter 6

**AN: Blah, blah, U.S. Holiday. Blah. Let's get back on track here.**

She wasn't a stranger to bad decisions; mistakes that would come back to chomp her in her rounded backside but, this time, Sookie had literally introduced herself to a whole new world of biting trouble.

Pearled points of danger warned her, the set of pristine white flags sharply unfurled between them, billowed with his ire, urged her to surrender to Eric's near violent dominion as he viciously snarled to all present in the bar a precise claim - one unequivocal word- that none of the lesser animals of the night would dare defy.

His ferocious tone barred even her from stubbornly contradicting the possessive term. Mostly, she was stifled by the fear of what might truly happen if she did, in fact, challenge the beautifully savage creature amid his own kind. Those she'd unwittingly incited past a reasonable interest with her earlier scheming for attention as well as the potentially lethal Sheriff himself. And, partly, from the primitive thrill that had raced unbidden up her spine from his domineering actions.

Shamefully, she acknowledged the unexpected tendril of emotion that wasn't akin to fright but nearer to something rife with primal desire that had swiftly danced through her, waltzed with a sensual grace and pounding rhythm that had left her breathless.

Suddenly, rebellious indignation had become nothing but a phantom partner.

_Simpering Idiot_.

Mentally girding her loins because her flesh and blood female parts were in far too close proximity to the Sheriff's hard abundance as she was still carelessly splayed across his lap like a human ragdoll; Sookie steeled her limp resolve and looked up into his even more rigid features.

_Epic Clusterfuck._

The smooth, pale, planes of masculine fury that seemed like they'd been etched of the most precious marble by a master's seductive hand, the blue waves of sinful passion that roiled in the sea of his stormy eyes, the ruthless ivory daggers that proclaimed his cutting superiority- it all swirled together, beckoned to her, swept her along an insistent tide that threatened to drown her in the deluge of unprecedented longing that crashed against the rocks of her independent nature.

_Relentlessly._

Alabaster stocks held her captive to her own want. The glistening white blades beguiled her, spurred her to tear through her innocent reluctance and caress the gleaming evidence of at least one of the erected monuments to the Sheriff's ragged arousal.

Thoroughly entranced, Sookie guilelessly raised soft, tentative fingers toward the hard points of his feral craving.

###

Need pounded through him like a jackhammer demanding everything, anything, something from the intoxicating chalice of innocence poured over him like a flute of sunny champagne. Her every hesitant pant bubbled along the razor edge of his savage thirst, inebriated his senses, soaked him in the blooming intensity of her arousal and the subtle bouquet of her fear.

Her unparalleled flavor rolled over his tongue; the wild remnants of the bloody cordial punctuated every unasked question. The tangy hint of defiance, the sweet nectar of purity, the savory flair of humor culminated in a delicate, refined, yet absolutely decadent vintage of molten rapture that was heightened only by the zest of the airy unknown that clung to the marrow of her existence.

Her fundamental essence seemed vaguely familiar yet singularly unique in every drop as well. The Viking felt as if he should be able to pinpoint the heritage that seasoned her flavor so delectably, his vast palate of experience making him an expert in all forms of the female persuasion but, still, he couldn't quite identify the elusive ingredient that comprised her signature taste.

Where exactly had this vessel of perfection come from?

_Hell._

Frustrated, Eric knew that he couldn't pepper Sookie with his questions right now. They were far too exposed on the tawdry dais of his bar. Putrid vermin and his nosy underlings alike were rabidly following every little movement between them like a swarm of locusts, stripping away any semblance of privacy that such an intimate discussion would require and plaguing him with their mere presence and overly avid curiosity. Now was not the time for the Sheriff to get immediate gratification for his inquiring mind regardless of how much he wanted to gorge himself with each morsel of knowledge that would hopefully satiate his growing obsession with his new pet.

Sadly, no matter how much he already knew about his sparkling gem, Eric had a sneaking suspicion; one that lurked in the dark corridors of his mind that some part of Sookie would forever remain a stubbornly enchanting enigma. Somehow that air of innocent mystery made her all the more enticing, of course, it seemed that his newfound treasure was equally enamored of the golden desire that spun between them like a fine chain, pulling her closer link by link, settling the clasp of finely polished need around the length of exposed skin at her neck. Her ruby hued flush of arousal was a priceless jewel displayed before him raw and untamed as her graceful fingers reached toward him.

_Yes_.

Touch. Tease. Torment.

_Please._

The urgent, almost desperate, demand for her willing touch spiraled through him, making him eager for the gentle, almost timid, caress of her unskilled hand. Unhurriedly, achingly slow, her feminine digits drew nearer to his distended fangs and nothing else existed for him but the promise of her tender stroke. Anticipation had him yearning for the plush, silky pads of her fingers to run along the hard points of his oral pleasure, dragging along the smooth edges, pressure building with her prolonged embrace until he was fully imbedded in her soft, warm, flesh.

Just as Sookie was about to make contact, to sear his fangs with the feel of her hot, honeyed skin, his pets startled gaze jumped to his. Something unrecognizable and unwanted glowed like amber flame in her brown depths as she snatched her hand away from him as if she'd been burned, scorched, by the mere possibility of touching him in such an intimate manner.

"Sookie," he instinctively growled. Her name a low mix of a questioning disappointment and harsh demand combined into one purely animalistic snarl.

"Eric," her sweet lilt trembled across the tightrope of his desire, "we need to get out of here."

Relief flooded him; it swiftly rolled an all too knowing smirk across his sinuous features as Eric realized that his virginal little Southern belle hadn't really rejected him before. Instead, his innocent ray of sunshine had simply shown her innate need for privacy for what she'd consider the unmentionable manifestation of the physical desire between them. Soon he'd break Sookie of her blushing modesty, as delicious as it was, but, until then, Eric didn't see anything wrong with placating her prudish whims. Besides, if he was being completely honest with himself, he didn't want to share even a bit of her tantalizing sexuality with his covetous underlings.

However, his renewed pleasure was short lived as Sookie earnestly dashed his carnal musings with her ominous admission, "The cops are coming."

###

Sookie had nearly surrendered; carelessly let her virtuous defenses fall like worthless, unwanted tares in the golden harvest of her future freedom as she'd moved to touch him. While she couldn't be glamoured, the baker had certainly been in the Sheriff's sensual thrall nonetheless. How else could she explain her near blunder?

_Truly Foolish._

Although, if she hadn't been nearly possessed by the fierce white beauty of what truly made him a vampire, the virile sensuality that pumped from him with a steadier pulse than any human life source, Sookie might not have lost control of her shields enough to let in that first image.

The mental tableau they'd made to one of the squalid patrons of Fangtasia had disturbed her enough to temporarily halt her newfound fascination with the Sheriff. They looked like a sordid portrait of sinful iniquity, a harem of lustful women languishing around their sexual God. One of the self-loathing drones had pitifully fancied them as a blonde trio of erotic perfection crowned by Jessica's ruby curls and not the glossy ones on the girl's head either. Eric had looked like a golden scepter amid his all-female court, the master of her flesh and blood curves as Sookie had nearly worshipped at the royal alter of his fangs.

_Such Bullshit._

What the hell was wrong with these people besides their poor fashion sense? These weren't necessarily mainstreaming vampires congregating in the seedy watering hole. Why would they seek out a situation that put them at the non-existent mercy of creatures that could rip them to bloody shreds just as easily as they'd discard them as insignificant nothings after they'd gotten their temporary fill of blood and sex? Why would someone romanticize her near captivity at the hands of the Viking like Sheriff? Or, worse, loath her enough to instantly wish bodily harm would befall her in all manner of disastrous and grotesque calamities because they hadn't been lucky enough to be his chosen plaything?

The fantasized notions and ardent jealousy were ridiculous. Crazy. Suddenly, the crowds' thoughts intensified, solidified as a unified force, butting against her sanity and self-respect like a battering ram, threatening to destroy any semblance of normality for her until she found that one, brief, respite.

A singular man who pitied her helpless state as she'd been sprawled across the bar owner's lap like nothing more than a pretty human trophy. His natural desire to buffer her from the possessive vampire was a soothing balm to her ruffled pride until the undercover officer had mentally ticked off the minutes until he could actually come to her rescue.

Eric hadn't understood the importance or the time sensitive nature of her earlier statement so she clarified, "There's going to be a raid."

Humorless disdain laced his words as her self-proclaimed Master replied, "Miss Stackhouse, did you inconveniently arrange for your brother to come and rescue you?"

"What, no," she questioned in disbelief. "This has nothing to do with Jason."

Sookie didn't even want to think about the danger posed by the Sheriff already knowing personal details about her life such as her only sibling being a deputy with the Bon Temps police department nor did she have time to contemplate the potential consequences of that at the moment. She needed to get them out of there.

_Pronto._

"Well, then," the vampire lorded over her, shifting his leg slightly to place her posterior more directly in line with a certain hardness of his, "you're just where I want you, my pet."

_Conceited Jackass._

"Eric," she argued back disregarding his crude words and equally vulgar movement, "we really need to leave now. They're coming to arrest you."

"We do nothing illegal here," he reassured her in a tone that implied that the sentiment was needless regardless of what his amusing pet claimed.

They really didn't have time for a pissing contest over whose beliefs were more accurate right now or his appalling lack of respect for human kind in general and her specifically.

"Fine," she huffed back at him purposefully trying to extricate herself from her precarious location on his lap at the same time as she sweetly derided. "Then please excuse me, Sheriff, I don't want to be present when you get silvered for allowing a vampire to feed on the premises."

"Eric," he annoyingly reprimanded like she was simply a naughty, untrained puppy. "And even if that were true," he evenly continued, "that is not an offense worthy of silver."

"No, but dealing V certainly is," she quipped back as Jessica suddenly put a nervous, restraining hand upon Sookie's exposed shin to caution her. She knew that the accusatory nature of her words would get a speedy reaction from the vampire community surrounding her as the baker firmly added, "Someone has been glamoured to claim that falsehood."

Instantly, Pam demanded from her secondary position behind Eric's shoulder, "How do you know this?"

"Does it really matter," Sookie replied to the other woman as she felt the crisp breeze of vampires smartly receding from the bar in all directions at her words. Just as quickly, Mr. Not So Clueless Afterall and his well-muscled thighs tensed underneath her bottom a second before he swept her up into his powerful embrace, carrying her like the most precious invalid or cherished of brides, and silently commanded Pam and Jessica to follow him through a narrow passage hidden behind the lit screen framing his euphemistic throne. How fitting that the secret corridor emptied into a private bathroom, even better, it had an external access point.

###

"You can put me down now," the piqued little blonde sputtered at him. "I am a human so in case you've somehow missed it that means that I've evolved enough to walk upright on my own two feet. Thank you very much."

Automatically, Eric wanted to deny her claim to humanity knowing just from her addictive taste alone that while Sookie might be a biped of the Hominid variety, that certainly wasn't the only branch of species that she could name as kin. Unfortunately, he had neither the time to argue with his impertinent pet nor the exact classification of otherness that had found a limb to perch on in her family tree.

_Yet._

Despite her flaming temper, the sunshine scented bundle in Eric's arms shivered in the cool night air like a quivering aspen as they watched the silent parade of lights en route to his club. Red, white, and blue swirled together, a luminous confetti of squad cars that marched in tandem toward his business seemingly in pursuit of justice but the Sheriff surely knew better.

Pensively, he narrowed his eyes in contemplation, his singular focus now on the nervous woman trying to shrink out of his uncompromising hold. Evenly, he drilled, "How did you know? Were you part of this?"

"No," Sookie's instant rebuttal denied any involvement but there was something else in her tone, in the almost negligible skip of her heartbeat, an underlying deception of some kind that had him immediately growling in doubt. Just as Eric was about to squeeze his unruly pet for a more truthful answer, his new ward tentatively interrupted their dispute.

"Sheriff, sir," Jessica babbled in his human's defense, "Sookie wouldn't do anything like that. She's a good girl. If she told you that someone has been glamoured to make that charge against you, they have been," she concluded with a surety that belied reason and her infantile status. "You need to be worrying about that mess," she nodded in the direction his bar, "and not her loyalty."

"Really," he leveled the immature red head with a none too gentle stare for her unruliness, "Tell me. How exactly do you know this?"

Painfully, Jessica winced in an all too familiar way. It was apparent that the young vampire didn't want to disobey the order of her Sheriff and new guardian but the female also couldn't ignore a previous directive from her sire either. Uncertainly, the baby vamp stuttered in a truly subservient and repentant manner, "Sheriff, I...I can't defy my Maker's command."

_Fascinating._

Bill had used his absolute authority over the youngling to guard his progeny's impetuous tongue on certain matters related to his pet. A wise move on the older vampire's part given Jessica's propensity for incessant chatter but certainly of no help to him right now, Eric needed to know precisely how Sookie had gleaned such damning information because he no longer doubted the veracity of her claim.

His child had let him know through their bond that she'd already spirited the human dupe away from their bar but certainly not the cunning perpetrator behind this attack. As he had no wish to face the Magister with a charge of desecrating the blood, no matter how false it would prove to be, Eric needed to be privy to all that Sookie had somehow learned.

"Tell me what I want to know," he ruthlessly plied his golden treasure with the sensual liquor of his most sinful tone hoping to impair her all too feminine judgment. He just needed one tipsy moment, when her senses were lulled by the cocktail of his masculine appeal for Sookie to divulge her secret to him like a drunken fool.

_Simple Really._

Defiantly, the blonde in his arms soberly refused to yield to his smoldering charm and insisted that the Sheriff actually put her down. Reluctantly conceding to Sookie's less than polite request for the sake of expedience, Eric raised one commanding brow at his infuriating pet and silently demanded the answers due him.

A smug look of retaliation became plastered across Sookie's delicate features as she folded her arms crosswise under her chest and sassed him back, "Well, Sheriff, look who's right where I want them now."

Outwardly, not a single muscle betrayed his bristling delight at her nonsensical posturing. Oh, his treasure was going to be so much fun to tame. He wondered just how fast she'd scamper to heel once Pam's guest joined them.


	7. Chapter 7

Foolishly, Sookie acted like she was an immortal peer without any fear of reprisal.

As if she was a supremely powerful being that had simply willed herself onto that plane of invincibility just like the crazy maenads from long ago, those zealous women whose delusional faith and rabid conviction had transcended their humanity and made them eternal followers of their primitive Gods. Their steadfast worship had granted them an unfettered immunity from mortality that made them nearly invulnerable but, unlike those magical relics of mythological fame, his pet's willful dominion and divine protection were only present in her ever creative but highly inexperienced mind.

His precious ray of sunny delight was all too fallible, she just didn't realize it.

_Yet._

Stubbornly, his golden treasure still defied him, dared the Viking Sheriff to prove the superiority of his kind and his masculine dominance with her continued resistance. He wasn't accustomed to the oddity of rebellion from mere breathers but it was becoming something all too familiar with his headstrong little human. The enticing flare of her temper and the tantalizing mystique of her self-assurance were a satisfying aphrodisiac if given a more leisurely pace or the proper setting to thoroughly explore it in like the sensual confines of his bed but there were times when his fascinating new pet would need to automatically submit to his authority without pause or, even, a single questioning glance.

Now was one of those perilously mercurial times but his blonde vessel of temerity didn't seem to be spilling a single drop of her haughty resolve as she worriedly paced the roofline. Her impudence inked across the dark outline of the Shreveport skyline making it the most prominent edifice on the landscape of contention between them. Mutiny rolled down each of her womanly curves and denial poured in overflowing doses from her pouty lips leaving him dry of patience, parched for a little docile reprieve, and thirsty for the quenching truth of her words. What he wouldn't give for just a small taste of Sookie's subservience, just a teeny tiny sip would wet the proverbial whistle of the rankled beast inside, assuage his discontent, and stop the nearly overwhelming urge to throttle her from coursing through his undead veins like a merciless tidal wave.

Ruthlessly, Eric rode out the crest of dark craving, the raging impulse to destroy and conquer that broke against the craggy reminder, the bedrock of knowledge, that he only wanted to tame the shrewish bottle of sunshine uncorked before him and not break Sookie's fragile exterior into a million little shards of bloody delight as she petulantly demanded, "You want to know how I knew about the raid, then tell me how I can save Bill."

_Insolent Chit._

"This isn't a double sided inquisition, Miss Stackhouse," his low tone leveled back at her without even the merest hint of patient indulgence. "You will answer all of my questions."

"No," the suntanned blonde sullenly refused. "If you're going to mess with my life, if you want your precious information, then I'm going to get something out of this as well."

Normally, he'd admire his pet's mercenary negotiation tactics even if the tender they were dealing in wasn't of a specific monetary value. That greedy, tenacious quality would lend itself well to her being a formidable vampire someday, if that became his preference, but this situation was all too different and immediate. Eric wasn't in the habit of paying for something that he already owned, whether money or something else exchanged hands, and this circumstance with his human was no different. Comprehension hadn't fully dawned on Sookie yet, soon she'd understand that she really had no leverage to deal with in this situation.

"As I have instructed you before," he coldly reminded her without dwelling on the spark of something particularly foul the other vampire's name elicited, "Mr. Compton is no longer any of your concern."

"But Bill wouldn't be in the situation if it wasn't for me," Sookie rashly decried. "I need to help him."

_Curious._

"Not that we were supposed to be discussing my former underling," he admonished in a purely inquisitive bent, "but just why would you think that you were somehow responsible for Compton's stupidity?"

There it was. He heard it or rather didn't hear it again like a trumpet's blare announcing the formal decree of her guilt. A blip of her heart. A skip in her blood. A miniscule instant of hesitant silence in her pulse that had his golden treasure withdrawing behind the safety of her seemingly impenetrable façade to futilely deny, "I don't know what you're talking about. I just want to help Bill."

It was apparent that his little Southern flower was now trying to gild the lily of her error with a distraction as she nodded toward the fledgling vampire and added, "Jessica needs her Maker back."

"Indeed," he coldly stared at the tumbler of breathing sunshine before him knowing that she was being intentionally evasive but needing to make one crucial detail completely clear, as shiny and transparent as the finest of handcrafted crystal. "Whether Mr. Compton ever gains his liberty again, you, my pet, will never be free of me."

"What, why," Sookie indignantly sputtered back at him in the face of his implacable will, "If his judgment is overturned, why would I still have to suffer the punishment of you?"

Annoyed that his sparkly new gem saw their arrangement as a penance that would mercilessly continue to be inflicted upon her, although he knew that was certainly the origins of their tenuous relationship, Eric merely offered with callous indifference, "When something becomes mine, it stays that way."

Making the statement sound like an unbreakable pattern of personal law though, truly, he'd never bothered with keeping banal livestock before. They were too messy and unimportant. Yet his precious Sookie didn't need to know that he'd established this new precedent just for her, it simply was the only conclusion his highly possessive nature would allow if he'd ever kept a pet before. She was his.

_Forever._

Suddenly, his glimmering ray of sweet delight was no longer shifting away from him. Instead, Sookie brutally stalked toward him, her purposeful movements in step with the arrival of his dutiful child and Pam's helpless captive. He scented the crimson trail of torture running down the man's dark valley of skin before the duo merged into his line of sight. Flamboyant features had been cruelly dulled by pain and once polished ebony skin now boar the scuff marks of a very tooth filled interrogation.

At his raised eye brow, his progeny rolled an answering expression back and drolly informed, "I stopped for a quick snack."

His child's bored look conveniently covered a highly alert state of being as Sookie angrily drew closer to them. From her earlier pageantry, Little Miss Congeniality had been all gracious smiles and soft charm but she certainly wasn't so cordial right now with her vampire constituency as Sookie bore down on him with the fisted might of her fiery temper.

###

The smack of her irate palm hitting a granite hued cheek reverberated in the cool night air like an ominous drum beat, ensnaring her anger, and counting out her disbelief with the waning tempo. How could they have found the dealer in question so quickly? Why did they hurt him when he'd obviously been glamoured to do it? What was she going to do now? More importantly, what was _he_ going to do now?

_Fudge._

Something dark and inherently dangerous blazed in the icy flames of the Sheriff's unwavering gaze as he mocked. "You surprise me. I thought that you would want to help your friend," he paused to make the sensual challenge in the vampire's tone abundantly clear as he further stroked her ire, "by pleasing me."

"Go to hell," she instantly replied not thinking past her immediate need for denial.

Mirthlessly, the Sheriff chuckled, "That can be arranged, Miss Stackhouse, of course, I will take your naughty associate along with me."

His smile was cold, lethal, and compelling as it settled upon her now trembling form. Dread and disgust raced for first place along her skin, crashed through the non-existent buffer of her uncertainty, and finally stopped in the winning circle of her despair. What the hell was she going to do now?

At her unaccustomed reserve, the domineering vampire roughly demanded her attention back, "Mr. Reynold's is a longtime acquaintance of yours, is he not?"

"How did you know that," she swiftly asked just as nervous about the possible answer to her stilted question as the ambiguity of the unknown shrouding the depths of his knowledge about her.

"I know a great many things about you," he jadedly assured, "but I intend to know every piece to your delectable human puzzle." The blonde's presumptuous answer towered over her just as intimidatingly as the vampire's overwhelming physical presence as he silkily promised, "Intimately."

The Sheriff had mischievously used a casual winking tone with that last word as if it hadn't been his almost singular purpose since making his unwanted presence in her life known the previous evening. She'd had little doubt of his ardor, the hardened length of his gracious bounty still leaving phantom tingles of awareness in feminine places she'd rather not mention given the adversarial tenor of their current interactions and his obviously predatory nature. Still, she couldn't ignore the potentially fatal dilemma Lafayette was now embroiled in all because of the machinations of brutal, greedy vampires out for something that didn't belong to them.

_Bloody Bastards._

"Now," the Sheriff gruffly threatened as his fellow blonde further bared her fangs to Lafayette's already bleeding neck, "tell me how you knew about the raid before my child grows peckish again."

At her injured friend's tremulous whimper, Sookie uttered in furious disdain, "No matter what you think, you don't own us. You can't treat us this way."

"Miss Stackhouse, if you believe nothing else that I tell you; know this," the blond giant growled his displeasure at her continued opposition. "Every part of you, every beat of your heart, and every drop of your blood, each tear you cry or breathe you take, everything, all of you- it all belongs to me now. I will not be lenient if you are noncompliant of my requests in the future."

Each word of his thunderous claim struck terror in her heart like a hammer of lightning fast fear and she instinctively moved to embrace Lafayette, to shelter him as the older female vampire carelessly pushed him to his knees. Before she could reach her friend, the Sheriff imperiously added, "That includes your touch. I do not grant permission for you to embrace either of your acquaintances."

Confusion laced her livid features as she tried to explain, "But I need to-."

"Sookie," Jessica gritted out a warning plea from between her recent dental hardware, her youthful face already tinged with too much old world knowledge, "just tell him already. You really don't have a choice."

"Fine," she quailed at the thought of revealing her longest, deepest held secret, the very same one that Bill had been imprisoned trying to protect. "I'm a telepath."

###

"That's rich," his progeny negligently derided his pet's blatant lie. "Do I get to eat him now?"

Silently, he gave his child permission to help teach his unruly human what it truly meant to defy him. The savage kick that Pam landed was merely a tenderizing action before she sunk her teeth into the dark juicy meat of Mr. Reynold's well-muscled shoulder.

"No, wait;" his golden chalice dribbled, rushing to offer a verbal barricade to the impending assault of her friend, "I'm not lying."

"Really," he tested, "you would risk a childhood companion's life on this falsehood."

"Yes," she raised tear-filled, pleading eyes in his direction that disturbed him on too many levels, "because it's the truth."

"Very well," he conceded, deciding to let his precious gem tighten the chain of her invisible choker, each damning word from her mouth would remove a necessary link from her friend until she was gasping, desperate to give him her humble honesty now and in the future. She wouldn't trifle with him after this grizzly tutelage.

"You don't believe me," Sookie squared her softly curved shoulders and calmly rebutted, "but you will."

Slightly, his pet shifted her head to the side as she unwaveringly stared down his child, "You got annoyed at a man earlier, you called him Jethro when you told him to dial it down a notch because he was annoying you while you were feeding but Clay was his real name."

"How do you know this," his stupefied progeny demanded.

"Then you discourteously returned the favor, infuriating him when you pleasured his girlfriend in front of him," Sookie added, her embarrassment casting a lovely pink hue to her features.

"That's impossible," Pam surreptitiously glanced in his direction for confirmation but he had none to give his child at the moment. He could already tell from the bond he shared with his progeny that Sookie had been telling the truth about things that had transpired long before she entered his bar this evening and wouldn't have privy to even if she had been in the building.

He was completely awestruck when, with equal determination, his pet's Southern lilt picked up strength and she sent him a quelling look, "I also know what you called the blonde that was in your office earlier tonight."

"You could be guessing," Eric momentarily faltered knowing that he'd mistakenly uttered his pet's name at his moment of needed release, overcome with anticipation as he'd fantasized that it was Sookie's sweet mouth swallowing him with such unskilled motions.

"She had a purple stripe in her hair," Sookie triumphantly added with knowing confidence, "down there."

_Shit._

"You're a fucking fairy," he furiously shouted knowing that this revelation changed everything.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Yep, this update has been too long in the making between the holidays, birthday parties, kids' school breaks and a rather nasty mental argument with a certain Viking who finally made me submissive to his demands. Ah, yeah, aren't we all… eventually. Anyway, hope you enjoy.**

The warm sunshine that cloaked her like a second skin…

The wild honey that permeated her scent with an indelible sweetness…

The heady brew that laced the wild flavor of her wheat flecked blood…

Even _if_ the intoxicating liquid had been served from a rather impersonal cordial instead of the more intimate, warmed, flute of her pulsing veins- it _all_ should have adequately forewarned Eric long before Sookie's forced admission.

Certainly, those scintillating clues would have too if he hadn't been so utterly enchanted by her innocent allure, so fully captivated by her fiery will, and so cockily sure that he'd easily prove his absolute dominion over a mere human pet that he already knew to be his by vampire right.

Instead, it was Sookie's uncomfortably revealing telepathy that had finally clued the Sheriff in to the deadly heritage that steadily pulsed through his pet's delectable form with the enthralling hum of a siren's lethal call.

_Hell._

Viciously, Eric instinctively grabbed his cunning fay's slender neck in retaliation for the sly distraction of her body's radiant innocence for he'd never been anyone's dupe before and he surely didn't like the humiliating vulnerability of it now.

His thick hand was like an iron manacle, hard and unbending, against skin as soft, delicate, and sheer as gossamer wings even though he knew that her apparent fragility was all just a surface illusion anyway. It was a gentile fallacy that prettily covered over the inbred malice of her kind and obsessively drew in unsuspecting predators just like him so that they could oh so willingly become her very eager prey.

_Fuck, he'd been stupid._

Livid, his restraining fist nearly burned from the radiant heat of Sookie's wretched ancestry as he clutched her. The pooling warmth from her Fae infused skin seeped from the supple curve of her nape, melted through the cool pads of his constrictive fingers, and singed his fierce pride for still not wanting to believe her apparent treachery. Fleeting thoughts of doubt fed his insatiable fury even more as Eric contemptibly snarled, "Well, my devious little fairy, just what else have you heard?"

Confused betrayal swam in the guileless amber ponds that had been disbelievingly upturned toward the unrelenting flow of his icy vision ever since Eric's long, powerful digits had gracefully wrought untenable pain along with Sookie's abrupt inability to escape his determined clutches. At best, only half of his human's sensually intoxicating frame could be beholden to her completely desirable but wholly treacherous kin and, still, that was doubly worse than the deadly havoc that even one of his own kind could normally wreak.

From her golden crown of silken hair to her brightly polished toes and every luscious curve his body still longed to taste in between, Sookie Stackhouse was all that his race had coveted with a reckless compulsion for longer than the millennium of his undead existence but could never trust because of the fairy essence that beguiled every deadly molecule of her exquisite body. She'd heartily proven that already by tricking him into believing that his new pet was nothing but the preciously rare treasure of an extra succulent mortal instead of the addictive poison of his natural enemy.

_Damn her._

"Answer me," he ruthlessly lashed out, shaking his petite tumbler of fay like she was no more than a martini of sunshine he was callously mixing. Insolently, her body intrinsically refused to blend to his harsh will no matter how penalizing his motions until, eventually, clumsily even, her limbs retreated listlessly to her sides like an easily discarded swizzle stick.

Sookie stopped even trying to pry the choking cuff of his hand away from the extremely vulnerable column of her throat as he once again blasted the unyielding wall of brown resistance in her gaze with the frigid demand swirling in his arctic stare.

Fractionally, just a bit harder, his grip tightened even more but his little fairy never conceded what he desperately wanted from her- answers, a denial, anything that would refute his worst suspicions.

Instead, Sookie finally shuttered what had seemed like never closing windows of accusation into her beleaguered soul. With a last condemning sweep of her lashes, his petite fey no longer unknowingly plead for him to believe her inherent goodness amid the blonde's frightened uncertainty as a single, watery drop slipped past the barrier of her eye lid to forge a glistening trail for others to eventually follow.

_Fuck her tears._

Inexplicably, another flash of rage thundered through him at her unexpected womanly duplicity and his own equally unprecedented gullibility where she'd been concerned. Forcefully, he refused to be manipulated by Sookie's feminine waterworks or the clever semantics of her words again as he ordered, "Tell me… Now."

His command hung heavy and stagnant in the cold crush of fall air that nearly suffocated their entangled bodies but, still, his pet stifled what should have been her natural inclination to submit to his powerful demand.

"She can't," Jessica sheepishly interrupted his interrogation; her youthful glare suddenly downcast as the Sheriff whipped his mercurial focus toward his new ward as the first meager sound of her insubordination rent the foreboding silence of the midnight sky. He had not given the youngling now under his charge leave to address him but the red head persevered anyway, "Sookie can't breathe."

_FUCK._

He hadn't known that through the blinding haze of his ire. Had he?

Instantly, the steel band of his angry finger's melted from Sookie's throat as the first unsteady gasp of her warm breath whispered across the thick joint of his knuckles like a flaming caress of shame. An unhealthy pall had dimmed his pet's golden beauty; her radiant skin was now shrouded in an unnaturally grim cloak that shouldn't have bothered the Viking since he had justifiably caused it and, yet, it did.

_A Hell of a Lot More Than It Should._

Without even a hint of the unforeseen remorse that abruptly coursed through him along with the slow, steady, return of his pet's reproachful gaze upon him, Eric impatiently pursued, "What have you heard from Pam's and my thoughts?"

"Never… vampires," Sookie shakily gasped without much force behind her stilted reply, the halting pauses between her words underscored by the blonde's glassy eyed astonishment. "Just humans… and…some others."

Quietly, with no warning at all, her unfeigned incredulity- at the mere possibility of what he'd naturally assumed was Sookie reading his thoughts and stealing knowledge from a vampire's mind- his pet's silent amazement whispered an artless belief of her innocence along places not so easily swayed by gentler emotion. Just as he was taking that improbability in, something that had tangibly stretched across the electrified air connecting their equally insistent gazes from the time they'd met snapped, instantly extinguished, the spark no longer arcing toward him from Sookie's once illuminated regard.

Eric was loath to put a name to whatever now lay so powerless and lifeless between them from her end but he already missed it.

His reaction was galling to a Viking of any age but utterly contemptible in a vampire of such ruthless duration as him. Without compunction, his vile thoughts automatically struck out at her as a final reckoning that would savagely rape Sookie's chaste mind and severely test the grueling limits of her implausible claim.

Grisly blood, excruciating pain, putrid stench- he used all of his most horribly graphic memories of both war and sex to desperately taunt his Southern belle and strip away his fairy's innocent charade to no avail.

Still, she remained impassive before him, not registering any of the atrocities the Sheriff was brutally sending her way, and, if Sookie had had any reaction at all, it was the spiteful return of her regular heartbeat.

"So you can't read vampire thoughts," his gravelly statement was more of a question intended to further gage her reaction than a confirmation of an explicit belief. Acutely, he listened for the telltale skip, the discordant pulse, of his pet's staccato heartbeat to give her falsehood away.

Patiently, he waited but it never came.

The smooth, solid, uninterrupted tempo thrummed over his vampire senses and melodiously blended her lack of response with her telling words to create a symphony of his personal condemnation.

Sookie might very well be an all too tempting fairy cocktail set to inebriate his sense sand destroy his judgment but she hadn't lied, at least, about this.

Defeated, Eric realized that he must already be drunk on her Fae essence; his decision making skills impaired more than they had been since he was a human Viking because Eric knew he'd probably just fucked up everything good with his blonde bottle of sunshine.

_Severely._

###

Sookie was just about to give Mr. High Handed and Intolerant a piece of her mind for calling her glamoured friend- the very one that Eric had let his progeny torturously nibble on en route to them like Lafayette was a human Pringle that once Pam's bloody fang had popped, she couldn't stop- such a derogatory term in reference to Lala's sexual preference just because the baker had proved her telepathic pudding to the insufferable vampire exactly as she'd claimed when Eric had eaten up all of her very telling revelations.

She had quickly opened her mouth but nothing came out when the Sheriff's fist ruthlessly claimed her throat in an inescapable grip like his long fingers had suddenly been woven into a hangman's deadly noose around her neck.

Disbelief, confusion, disappointment, betrayal and so many more emotions fiercely thundered through her system with the unrelenting cadence of wild horses. The stampede of feelings that galloped across her now breathless form tried to flee the hard bit of his hand that could so easily break her flesh, tear through her spirit, and leave her sorely panting her submission to his demands if the vampire's hold didn't lessen soon.

The whip of the Sheriff's cruel temper tightened around her even more as his unbridled fury nearly made the blonde forget even her own name as a painful darkness threatened to take her under with each passing second. His rough questions ricocheted in her mind, echoing without comprehension as his killing embrace drew her closer to lifeless oblivion.

Time seemed suspended between them for just a moment, their gazes locked in a silent battle with legions of sentiment primitively dueling against each other. Gone was the arrogant seducer she'd successfully challenged with such aplomb and in his place was a wronged warrior whose faith had been broken and was now hell bent on bloody vengeance against her for something Sookie hadn't even done.

Desperately, her eyes begged him for a reprieve until the tentative hope that Bill's Sheriff could ever be her safe harbor shattered along with the broken beat of her heart before she helplessly surrendered to the oxygen deprived abyss that so ravenously claimed her.

For an instant, there was nothing. No merciless Viking, no vampire peanut gallery, no terrorized Lafayette…nothing.

And, then, just as quickly, the bands of death that had been clamped around her throat gave way and a precious commodity of human life, air, flooded her lungs like an impenetrable dam of resistance had been washed away with the tide of his release.

Slowly, arduously, Sookie finally sputtered out a feeble answer to disprove the Sheriff's erroneous assumption before all ten fingers of his angry impatience wrapped around her small frame again. Already, she'd nearly been felled by only half that many and couldn't risk another round with his bruising tentacles of destruction. She had no idea how the fanged menace had determined that she'd garnered her information from his brain but Sookie really needed to let the muscled tower of avenging Viking know right now that she couldn't read vampire minds for her own safety or else the baker just might find herself on the wrong side of his sharp white swords of maceration next time.

More firmly, the telepath took a deep breath and reassured, "Vampire minds have always been a blank to me."

Pointedly, she added after another exchange of air, "You didn't glamour your meals after dinner was over and they were still waiting around the bar hoping to be your respective night caps for the evening."

Her explanation seemed to temporarily pacify the Sheriff, his irrational anger at her seemingly assuaged for the moment since the blonde length of undead flesh was no longer trying to kill her. At least, for the moment, she humorlessly joked to herself.

Then the Sheriff's lethal instincts skewered her without warning with his next set of questions, "Did Compton know about your talent? Is that why he told you to trust me?"

Trust him?

_Seriously._

How could this savage animal ever think that she could possibly trust him after the way they'd been introduced, never mind, his nearly lethal attack on her personage tonight? And, worse, how had he known that Bill had given her that directive to begin with?

Somehow, Sookie figured that trusting Eric Northman might just be the last mistake she'd probably make in her too short life. Dubiously, she scoffed with haughty Southern scorn, "Obviously, Bill was a little misguided with his advice. Don't you think?"

Before she could place a cutting verbal addendum to her earlier answer, Jessica readily supplied for her, "Bill believed that you'd look after Sookie for him, Sheriff, because she must be protected."

"Interesting," the heartless vampire replied, his face seemingly devoid of any emotion as his eyes catalogued every nook and cranny of her still trembling form before he further prodded, "So Bill did know."

If that bastard was looking for her to confirm that fact for him now, after what he'd just done to Lafayette, to _her_, the Sheriff could spend the rest of his eternal existence waiting to hear the lilting tone of her validation as Sookie mutely stared back at him in response.

_Never Gonna Happen, Jackass._

Apparently, Bill had been gravely mistaken about his Sheriff. While Bill had been the epitome of an old school Southern gentleman who chivalrously kept his honorable word, there was nothing about Eric Northman that was remotely gentle, noble, or trustworthy. Sookie had certainly learned that lesson the hard way this evening but she was an adept student and wouldn't be forgetting that bloody fact any time soon even without the cliff notes of pain that hugged her sore throat as a reminder.

Now, she just needed to figure out how to escape the legendary Viking's presence along with Lafayette and Jessica in tow. Suddenly, she wished that her normally unmentionable handicap was teleportation instead of her plaguing telepathy; it would be infinitely more useful in her current predicament but, barring a miracle, she was going to have to fall back on her resolute stubbornness even if it was going to have to be a little feigned this time.

With a tone that was neither tamed nor docile, Sookie bluffed, "Jessica and I will be taking Lafayette home now."

Quickly, she moved to retrieve her injured friend before another deadly calamity could befall them. Just as she was about to grab hold of Lafayette, the blonde tower of reckoning behind her chided, "Miss Stackhouse, you already seem to have forgotten the rules you now live by."

Mercilessly, cold dread shivered along her spine in the wake of one very lethal digit as it proprietarily made its way from the base of the starched cotton at her lower back, over the exposed skin on her shoulders, to stealthily disappear into the tendrils of hair at her nape just as his low voice intimately growled into her ear, "You have not been given leave to go."

If she'd teetered on the fence about whether his threats had been viable before, Sookie now had no doubts. She was a firm believer. Her feet were solidly planted on the side that longed for the greener pastures of freedom she'd known before Eric Northman had ever come into her world.

His chilling words rippled over her with the knowing promise that the Sheriff literally held her life in his hands if he was displeased as the Viking leveled. "Our current exchange has not satisfied me… yet."

And, then, Sookie knew with dreadful certainty that she'd have to give him everything he wanted or die fighting him. Neither was a very comforting choice.


End file.
